No need to be a Kung Fu aficionado to enjoy the book I KNOW KUNG FU by Hong Kong visual artist Rex Koo.

Published by Hong Kong-based design book publisher Victionary, the illustration book is a tribute to the popular and iconic stars of Chinese martial arts who contributed to this global pop culture phenomenon.

Born in Hong Kong in 1977, Rex Koo has been both a graphic designer and an artist for the past twenty years. He worked with designer and photographer Wing Shia on projects like the iconic movie In The Mood for Love, designed music album covers for local singers such as Leslie Cheung and Eason Chan, and freelanced for brands like Nike or Hello Kitty.

Since he was a child, Koo has been fascinated by the 1980s pop culture, particularly Hong Kong movies. It is no surprise that he devoted his art and books to Hong Kong cinema.

He released Only You Can Take Me to Get Scriptures in The West in 2015, and Once Upon a Time – Memory of Hong Kong Cinema in 2016. In 2017, he published Bleeding and Death are Two Different Things, dedicated to the blood and death scenes in Hong Kong movies.

After the Typhoon Mangkhut hit Hong Kong in 2018, Koo conceived a fantasy story using the city as a stage, Strange Tales of Walled City.

His fourth publication, I KNOW KUNG FU, is a tribute to his childhood heroes from the 1980s and 1990s classic Kung Fu cinema, where he recreates a selection of extraordinary martial arts skills and pays tribute to martial art actors.

Koo spent days consuming Kung Fu films again and again, and traveled across lands in an attempt to trace the origins of each martial arts technique and to chronicle them through his art. He even suffered from various ailments, having overexerted his arm from too much “art-ing”!

In the book, Koo accurately illustrates iconic Kung Fu stunts and techniques like ‘Shandong Iron Vest’, ‘The Magic Power of Toad’, ‘Mighty Steel Leg’, ‘Wing Chun’, from popular movies Once Upon a Time in China III, Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle, and The Grandmaster.

Thanks to his ability to reproduce battles between Kung Fu masters with pen and paper, Koo can lively and sharply portray characters and actions, using his bold colour schemes, with the aim to “preserve every martial arts technique as an important cultural artefact”.

To help the neophytes to understand the techniques, Koo also adds background references and explanations to his illustrations, as well as anecdotes and semi-fictional side stories, plotting an extensive Kung Fu fantasy landscape.

He also dedicates the last thirty pages of his book to martial arts actors and masters with illustrations and biographies, adding an educational value to his book.

Finally, book lovers will be fond of this “book-object”, creatively bound and available with two cover options, in vivid red or bright yellow.

In addition, Rex Koo has released limited silkscreen art prints, featuring Bruce Lee & Ip Man, and another inspired by The Matrix, signed and numbered, available on Victionary online shop.

I KNOW KUNG FU, by Rex Koo, published by Victionary
185 x 255 mm, 288 pages, HKD 380
Format: full colour, hard cover (two cover options)
Language: English

Available online at Victionary.